Over the years I’ve observed an increase in the incidence of practitioner paralysis. This occurs typically & understandably in the face of fearmongering. A good example is in the area of so-called ‘methylation medicine’ where we’ve been lead to believe that writing ‘the right’ nutritional prescription for patients requires a) their full gene profile, b) a knowledge of biochemistry that no one outside of a legit biochemist should have (!) and c) a bordering on perverse interest in in vitro research looking at how these pathways interact with different nutrients. And if we, as mere mortals (and naturopaths, nutritionists, herbalists or integrative pharmacists or GPs at that), are lacking in any of these WE WILL STUFF THIS UP GLOBALLY and put them on THE WRONG THING THAT WILL BE CATASROPH*C! Note: fearmongering always uses caps 😉
This stems from the misguided belief that ‘biochemistry alone maketh the man’ and ‘SNPs should write the ‘script!’
And the source of these falsisms are, what I refer to as, ‘Wallys with wall charts’. As impressed as we might be by individuals with brains for biochemistry or genetics, we should not let this overshadow the knowledge that health and disease are much more than 1 or 2 facets of your gene profile and how this may predict the pace of a few out of a million chemical reactions. Right? I mean I doubt any of us working in integrative health would intend to be so reductionistic and yet here we are with practitioners forgoing clinical (and RCT) evidence over that derived from in vitro with respect to supplements like SAMe and N-acetyl cystine, or worse still, taking as gospel, ideas that have come from pure hypotheses, based on 1 SNP out of an individual’s whole gene profile! This has infiltrated many areas of naturopathic and integrative medicine and certainly gotten the best of me at times too. But I am pushing back. Enough is enough. We humans are not our gene profile and holistic practitioners like us – know the manifold influences upon our health and wellbeing better than just about anyone else. And if you feel a bit lambasted by my little tirade – know that I have to give myself this very same talking- to every now and then – when I fall under the spell of Wallys and their wall charts!